The Cassini Division

Ken MacLeod

At the beginning of the 24th century, the inner Solar System is dominated
by the socialist Solar Union. Their front-line fighting force, the
Cassini Division, defends against viral attacks from post-human Jovians
and keeps careful watch on a wormhole. Ellen May Ngwethu, a member of
the Division's Central Committee, travels to areas of Earth occupied by
"non-cos", low-tech anarchists who still use such antiquated devices as
money. Her goal is to find the physicist Malley, whose help is necessary
to find a way through the wormhole. And after taking the losing side in
a debate over whether to bomb the Jovians or to try to communicate with
them, Ellen travels through the wormhole to ultra-capitalist New Mars.

After a slower opening, there largely to link back to earlier books
set in the same universe, The Cassini Division rattles along at a
good pace. It is not particularly compelling as a novel, however,
with no characters that really come to life. Ellen has centre-stage
throughout but remains something of a cipher, her dominant feature her
dedication to "the true knowledge" on which the Solar Union was founded
("self interest") and her hostility to non-humans, both rooted in her
personal history. And none of the other characters gets much play at all.
Suze, for example, is a sociologist who joins Ellen early on in the story
and has as high a profile in it as anyone else, but she could still have
been trivially edited out.

The science is "space opera" style, deployed when necessary for the plot
but otherwise passed over, and the intellectual interest comes from the
politics. This takes the form of open discussions of political theory
and depictions of different forms of social organisation in action, but
it never becomes didactic or stodgy. MacLeod himself is a Trotskyist
libertarian, a label which gives some feel for his eclecticism, and
he depicts very different political systems working reasonably well —
though he often verges on parody. There are also plenty of little jokes,
such as a statue of Mises in the Central Planning Committee building.

A significant factor is that aging has been stopped, so many people
are centuries old and have political views formed in the 21st century.
This makes the recurrence of current political ideologies three centuries
down the road more plausible, but it is also a key stabilising factor.
Whether in non-co areas of Earth, in the Solar Union, or on New Mars, to a
great extent the system works because it's what people are accustomed to.
And even the Jovian "fast folk", descendants of humans who moved into
computers and experienced a kind of singularity, have some continuity
with their past.

Overall? There's not much more to it, but The Cassini Division makes
a decently entertaining action story, with plenty of ideas for anyone
interested in political theory. I'm not going to rush off and buy Ken
MacLeod's other books, but I'll keep an eye out for a chance to borrow
them or scam review copies.